


The Reckless Kind

by thereinafter (isyche)



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Arguing, F/F, Happy Ending, Making Up, Protectiveness, Secret Relationship, Teasing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-17
Updated: 2019-06-17
Packaged: 2020-05-13 00:12:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19239919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isyche/pseuds/thereinafter
Summary: When Laurel Trevelyan persuades her to come on a diplomatic trip alone, Cassandra struggles with her need to protect an Inquisitor who loves taking risks, especially with her.





	The Reckless Kind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CaptainStormChaser](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainStormChaser/gifts).



  
It’s a crisp morning in the strange half-winter half-autumn of Skyhold, and Cassandra is first in the council room for the daily meeting, enjoying the quiet and the brightening sky over the mountains.

The door creaks, and Laurel comes in still pulling her hair into its long messy braid, jacket unbuttoned, grumbling. She’s carrying a leather folio under her arm, papers spilling out. The Inquisitor hates mornings, as scores of difficult camp-breakings have taught them all.

But she smiles upon seeing her alone there, lets go the half done braid, and quickens her steps. "Cassandra. I can't stop thinking about this," she murmurs, and backs her into the table, hooks her finger through the band of her doublet collar.

Cassandra’s had trouble with it herself, since the other day, and now, the touch draws her back to the clearing with Laurel’s naked weight on her, feet curling into the moss and dirt, air thick with stolen burning candles.

“Right now?” she mutters against Laurel’s cheek. It’s not why they’re here, and already hard to hide.

“Tell me not to?”

Cassandra doesn’t. Laurel’s loose hair tumbles over her hands. The table edge digs into her back.

Then: voices in the unfinished hall outside. Laurel breaks the kiss and spins to face the door as Leliana and Josephine enter, laughing about something.

Cassandra leans on the table and collects herself, breathing to slow her heart, her peace scattered. How long can she keep this up?

“Good morning, Inquisitor,” says Leliana. “You’re here early. Cassandra, did you know the baron of Lydes commissioned a gigantic painting of us closing the Breach? It’s wonderfully terrible. Everyone must see it.”

Cullen is last in, letting the door go. “It’s like all the eyes follow you,” he says.

Cassandra manages a chuckle and glances up as Leliana circles the table.

“He’s certainly got my attention. I feel like more of our exploits should be immortalized this way,” Laurel says, perching on the table edge next to her without looking at her.

The advisors laugh with her, and then start into the business of the day, bending over the map. Cullen points out some routine troop movements, and Josephine reads the highlights of her letters: invitations, supply negotiations, some other presumptuous noble inviting himself to Skyhold.

Laurel finishes braiding her hair as they talk. "Besides that, I've been giving a lot of thought to, er …” She opens the folio of papers beside her with one hand. “Your proposal about the goodwill visit to Val Royeaux, Josie.” Tying off the braid, she announces, “What I’ve decided is that Cassandra can come with me, and everyone else can keep working on the defenses against Corypheus."

Cassandra’s heart jumps again at the thought, beyond her control, before all the ways this is a terrible plan make her tense and frown.

Leliana’s gaze is skeptical. Josephine’s is sympathetic, but then she says, “The Hero of Orlais would be an impressive companion. That might open more doors in the city, even now.” She puts the tip of her pen to her mouth, then smiles. “You can thank the baron for his painting. Stay at his city chateau.”

Cassandra picks up the report and scans the words, finding even more reasons not to do it. “I don’t agree it’s a good idea. Whatever the circumstances. You shouldn’t leave behind people who can defend you.”

“There probably won’t even be fighting. I think I'll be just fine in your famously competent care.” Laurel tucks her legs under her on the table, pleased with herself. “And we need people here. Don’t the rest of you think so?”

That is what worries her: this delight in dancing on the line, whether secrecy or safety. She can’t stay and argue on two levels. “In that case, I will wait to hear how else I am overruled.” She slaps the paper down and turns to leave.

Behind her, Josephine says, “Are you sure about this, Inquisitor? She does hate these things,” to which Laurel answers, “Mm-hmm.”

As the door closes, she hears Leliana say, “I can give her your briefing later.”

An extended Val Royeaux estate party is her second worst nightmare, and Laurel made her want to go. She could lose herself and her responsibilities in the strength of these new feelings. She wants to say yes every time Laurel looks at her.

The baron’s painting is leaning against a wall in the great hall. It’s as awful as they said. She has the eyes of the whole painted Inquisition on her back as she walks out.

* * *

"I thought you'd be pleased," Laurel whispers, that evening when the armory is quiet. "Aren't you?" She punctuates it with something that does please Cassandra a great deal, until Cassandra has to bite her own hand not to agree.

"I want to go with you," she says when she can. "I don't want the Herald of Andraste to die because she distracted me."

"Still not the Herald of Andraste, but I swear I won’t do this in battle." Laurel gives a devil-may-care smile from beside her on the pallet. She wants to laugh and groan at the same time.

Then she does it again, and the thought of any injury to her makes Cassandra feel made of glass, transparent, shiverable.

In the following days, she decides that Laurel traveling with her alone will have to put up with enough bodyguarding for three. She plans a winding route to avoid ambushes, and packs extra weapons and an overfull healer’s bag. She allows Leliana and Josephine to brief her in too much detail, and rehearses bland responses to Game-playing and tired questions about dragons.

In return, for the days on the road together, in the forests and hills and solitary places, she allows herself to say yes, and they have their way with each other.

* * *

They ride toward Val Royeaux from the west, clouds still pink ahead, birds noisy with waking. Laurel is yawning, sitting her horse in silence and squinting into the early sun.

Their host has sent an honor guard of armsmen, who are no doubt being paid to listen as well as escort, although they look just as sleepy. As they follow the men through the chateau gates, Laurel glances at her, then says loud enough for them to hear, “I certainly hope they make the proper arrangements. I’ve heard of whole traveling parties getting stuck with only one bed. Can you imagine?” She looks as if she really wants to raise her eyebrows suggestively and is holding back.

Cassandra suppresses most of her smile at this. “If we do, it is yours. The complaints would be too much, otherwise. ‘Cassandra, the floor is too cold.’ ‘Cassandra, I’m sleeping on a rock.’”

Laurel laughs. “I’m a creature of luxury. I look forward to testing whatever arrangements are made.”

As they ride on, Cassandra, yet again, asks herself why they haven’t simply told anyone.

She isn't ashamed, but her feelings are barely explainable to herself still, a fierce brightness that blinds her. Laurel could be keeping quiet for her sake, or just for the game of sneaking about and risking discovery. Either way, their little time alone has been theirs, set apart, and she’s had no wish to share it, especially not with Orlesian courtiers.

But, now they’re here, there will surely be more games and subterfuge than she has patience for. She half sighs, half growls under her breath and sits up straighter.

* * *

As it turns out, there is plenty of space for them to have a room each, next to each other. Cassandra assesses their security and asks for a special guard on the Inquisitor’s door, to which the guard-captain agrees after a moment of wide-eyed stammering.

Of course this will mean nothing against a threat from within, but, she reminds herself, Leliana believes this baron is trustworthy.

Laurel perks up more after being presented with strong tea and currant cakes, which Josephine must have specified she liked. For the rest of the morning, she’s the picture of debonair confidence, being introduced to a parade of masked friends and relatives of the baron.

The rhythm of it is much like escorting the Divine. Cassandra finds a strategic place to stand, gives short cordial answers when they speak to her, and watches them carefully. She recognizes most of the names from Leliana's briefing. They keep Laurel too busy to give her more than meaningful looks, which is likely just as well.

She finds nothing to especially dislike about these people, beyond the masks. The baron is gracious, the baroness thoughtful and sharp in her questioning. Their servants, children, and grandchildren seem well treated. It leaves nowhere for her suspicion to settle, which is exhausting.

In the afternoon, there is an amusement in the gardens with music and more chatter and small overdecorated foods, by which time Laurel has lost some of her visible élan.

Cassandra wonders if she should wade through the crowd and pull her away for a respite, but then the baron approaches and she has to make conversation about his recent stay with a Pentaghast cousin in Hunter Fell, and the best number of scouts for tracking a Highland Ravager.

The next time she looks out at the garden, Laurel has disappeared.

Cassandra’s thoughts white out in panic for an instant. She reaches for her sword hilt and wheels around to find all the singers still in their places, and the Inquisitor by none of them.

“You must pardon me,” she says to the baron, trying to keep her voice level. He raises an accommodating hand and nods, the plume on his mask dipping.

She steps away quickly, crossing the garden, glancing down every path and colonnade. Laurel had been standing in a knot of ladies near a bench. Her glass is still there, set on the arm, a little pale wine left in the bottom. It smells of nothing strange, but Leliana’s descriptions of odorless poisons are memorable.

She refuses to dwell on them and widens her search, trying to move casually. In an out-of-the-way corner between two topiaries, she finds Laurel’s neckcloth draped over a branch in a suspiciously intentional way.

Twenty paces past that point is what looks like the entrance to a hedge maze, an arch of trimmed shrubbery, and one of Laurel’s daggers stabbed into the ground beneath it. Cassandra yanks the blade out and walks under the arch, weighing it in hand.

The maze is small, but twisty. Eventually, she turns a last corner to find a fountain under a tree, and Laurel sitting on the edge, sun catching her hair and coat like she fell from it, stripping petals from a daisy and tossing them in the water.

“ … She loves me." Laurel drops the last petal, then looks up at her with a mischievous smile.

Cassandra stabs the dagger into a plant pot, wanting to both shake her and hold her. Laurel makes the decision for her by throwing arms around her neck, going on tiptoe, kissing her face in a flurry of soft lips and wet heat. Cassandra’s mind is arrested by the taste of her skin and how beautiful and alive she is. Her hands smell green like broken stems. She may have had too much wine.

"I couldn't take it out there anymore. I knew you’d find me." Laurel runs fingers down her chest over the plate.

Against her own inclination, Cassandra says, "You cannot go off alone. I was—"

"I'm not." Laurel meets her eyes laughingly.

Cassandra, even now wanting to say yes, bites it off. “In this city, people will assassinate you merely for the art’s sake. Tell me Leliana has told you this, or demonstrated.”

“I’m not afraid of them.”

“Then she hasn’t.”

Laurel slides the dagger from the plant and wipes it. “If the hedges are so full of assassins, then guard me.” She leans into Cassandra’s body. “They won’t miss us for a little longer.”

“They will miss you.” Cassandra takes her by the shoulders. “They notice everything. Don’t make me pick you up and drag you back.”

“Would you?” Laurel tilts her head, undiscouraged.

Cassandra snorts and throws up her hands. “Or stay here and abandon the Orlesian goodwill mission to me.”

She starts for the path out, and sighs in private relief when Laurel chuckles and follows.

* * *

That night, they attend a play with the baron and baroness, as part of their planned itinerary.

Josie and Leliana took pity on Cassandra and said she could wear Seeker armor like all of the paintings show, instead of standing through fittings, and so that is how she goes. For Laurel, though, they commissioned a gown, severe ink blue with a subtle green shimmer that echoes the glow of the Anchor and sets off her coloring; it’s all orchestrated for effect.

And maybe it inspires her, because she briefly summons a regal bearing to go with it: the Herald of Andraste she denies being, sweeping into the theater, drawing all eyes, making Cassandra raise her head a little higher to be with her.

But all those masked eyes are also unsettling, and when the lights are extinguished, the restless light of the Anchor becomes a target for anyone up in the dark. Cassandra spends the pre-curtain time wondering how she can block an arrow without throwing herself over the Inquisitor bodily. Failing other ideas, she grabs Laurel’s hand to cover the light, pushing them both under a fold of her tabard, as the play starts.

It’s a modern retelling of a Blessed Age history play, and the actors trade masks in the avant-garde style. There are two brothers, or maybe sisters, and a chorus of birds, and a cruel emperor. After their wrongful execution, the tragic lead makes a long speech while trailing a single symbolic red ribbon. Then their beloved gives another speech over their tomb. Then the birds make a collective speech.

And all the while, Cassandra is only following a fraction of it, because Laurel is taking advantage of having her hand trapped, bare fingers sliding secretly through hers, and the Anchor is a faintly electric crackling against her palm. She’s held and been held by Laurel’s hands often enough of late, and not felt it like this.

In the faint illumination from the stage lamps, she glances over at Laurel and sees her looking up past the actors and biting her lip in concentration.

All through the second act and the birds’ extended musical interlude, both of them keep their eyes on the play, and Cassandra sits still with difficulty, feeling as if her hand is her whole body, worrying about avenues for assassination she’s missing.

She has always struggled with patience, but that is apparently nothing to Laurel’s lack of it. After the lights are rekindled at the interval, standing conversing with the baroness, Her Worship Inquisitor Trevelyan touches her forehead and gasps showily, “Maker, I feel faint,” and collapses across the seats into Cassandra’s lap, trailing blue-black skirts.

The baroness exclaims and a murmur of concerned voices goes up. Startled, Cassandra bends to check her breathing, and when she does Laurel whispers in her ear, “I’m taking you up on your threat. Drag me back to the chateau.”

It is unfairly arousing in that moment. Cassandra is irritated at herself for playing along with this stunt and, still, wants to, is going to carry her out of here. She makes a disgusted noise. “I would not actually drag you,” she mutters, then gets one arm under Laurel’s legs and the other behind her back, and heaves her up off the seats.

“I fear the day has been too much for her,” she says to their hosts. “The travel, you understand, and the mark, it takes a toll …” She runs out of invention and adjusts her hold. Laurel’s head falls conveniently limp on her shoulder.

“Oh, the poor thing!” The baroness produces a bottle of smelling salts from beneath her shawl. “What a terrible burden for the Herald. Will you try these?”

“We’ll return to the chateau at once,” the baron announces.

“No, thank you. Please, stay for the rest of the play yourselves.” She shifts Laurel’s weight up higher. Burden for the Herald, indeed. “I will see to her.”

Laurel quivers silently with laughter. Cassandra frowns at her as she climbs the steps out of the theater. Finally, the doors settle closed behind them, and they’re out in the night air, less observed.

“Why in the world would you do such a thing?” she demands.

“Obviously,” Laurel whispers, “I’m lightheaded. Maybe it’s the dress. Or the play.”

“And expect me to cover for you?”

“You did beautifully.” She cups the side of Cassandra’s face, then resumes her fainting attitude until they reach the waiting carriage on the street.

After the driver’s panel slides shut and they begin to move through the dark, Laurel stretches and glances down at her dress. “I believe the next step is unlacing me.”

Cassandra is still exasperated, no matter how she felt back in the theater. “They are right there. Do it yourself.”

“That’s much less fun.” The carriage bumps over paving stones, smooth, rough, smooth again. Outside the small window are black sky and walls and street braziers, and then the moon emerging past a spire and out of a cloud.

“Leliana has wonderful taste,” Laurel is musing, opening her high collar. She’s loosened enough of the dress that a slice of her skin catches the scattered light, and she leans in again, offering.

“She does.” It’s hard not to want to finish it. “Oh, come here.” She threads fingers through the gap and pulls, maybe too hard, just as the carriage jolts; the laces slip, dark boned silk separating to the waist. Laurel gives a delighted _ah_ when she stops before the fabric tears.

“Much better.” Her heartbeat is palpable. The warm sides of her breasts lift as she inhales, and the carriage rolls into shadow, and she draws Cassandra willingly down to her.

Barely controversial for this city, she tells herself, wishing for more time until they arrive.

When they roll up to the chateau, Laurel murmurs that she’s feeling faint again and might need carrying inside for proper tending, and Cassandra agrees she does. And the bed has more than enough space to be shared, and the evening is a stolen gift, considering the play has three more acts.

Later, with Laurel curled against her as the candles burn down, Cassandra says, “You shouldn’t play the fragile flower again. We are here to convince them you can lead.”

“You’re right. As usual. But don’t tell me you didn’t want out of there.”

She can’t, and she can’t say she didn’t enjoy it, and she can’t even disapprove for security reasons. “Josephine will be disappointed,” she says, finally.

Laurel chuckles, then turns her left hand and watches the green light crawl and flare and subside, as if burning inconstant fuel. “It’s so active tonight," she says. "Tingling, all through my fingers. Feel it. Can you?"

When she spreads her hand on Cassandra's belly, that faint, live crackling returns across her skin, like very small chain lightning. When she moves it, Cassandra closes her eyes and sucks in a breath.

“I didn't know it could do _that_ ," Laurel says a moment later, voice huskier. “Hold still.”

* * *

  
The next day, Laurel brushes off concern about her fainting spell and goes full-tilt in the other direction, overcompensating with cockiness.

“Oh, I’m fully revived,” she says to the baron, “thanks to your kindness and Seeker Pentaghast’s valiant effort.”

Cassandra, standing next to her, does not comment. Fortunately, her reputation in Val Royeaux is such that leaning on pillars and glowering are what people expect, and they don’t notice the extra effort not to blush.

“Speaking of which,” Laurel says, and starts into a story about the recent Inquisition victory at Caer Bronach, which comes around to a far too breathless description of something she did in the battle, to which she also refuses to react.

“And while she routed them all, I picked off the archers, and we reached the dam controls in the nick of time, and then the rift.” Laurel raises her glass. “Long story short, the town is recovering.”

“That must have been something to see,” says the baroness.

“Always,” says Laurel in an undertone before she drinks, and then louder, “If you’d ever like to commission another painting, I have ideas.”

Cassandra glares at her harder.

A bold younger courtier speaks up. “We were just proposing a friendly contest of arms before dinner. I don’t suppose you’d care to try us, my lady? As a diversion?” His friends laugh behind their masks and punch him.

Cassandra says, “I think not.”

“And you, Lady Inquisitor? Join us for a little target practice?”

For the rest of the afternoon, Laurel entertains herself with shooting and throwing, impressing the young blades, and incidentally showing off for her captive audience. Cassandra doesn’t let her out of her sight, but this is so harmless and reasonable that she’s left waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Then, at dinner, Laurel goes barehanded again, and a new group of guests want to see the Anchor up close. She holds it up and the crowd closes in with oohs and ahs, green light reflecting from their masks.

"Your Worship," the baron says, with a flourish of his lace cuff, "if, after dinner, you might be willing to humor us further—"

"Anything I can do." Laurel gestures with her glowing left hand and grins, giving Cassandra a sinking feeling.

"... Yes, well, as it happens, my servants have located a small one of these Fade rifts on my hunting land, and it seems to be disturbing the game. I'd be in your debt if you would care to give us a real demonstration." He mimes a rift-closing the way she’s shown them.

“I’ll do you one better.” Laurel jumps up. “Let’s take care of it right now. Bring dinner along.”

“Make a picnic of it?” says the baron. “How amusing.”

“What do you say, Cassandra? We’ll show them."  
  
Here is the shoe. “Inquisitor,” Cassandra protests, but she’s already off, waving the others onward, and footmen are beginning to wrap food.

The household rises and flows out to the stables, and then on horseback and dogcart over the fields, away from the city, following Laurel, as if she’s called a hunt. Cassandra gathers sword and shield and gallops through them to catch her.

“It’s a small one,” Laurel says, atop a green hill overlooking the rift. “Look. It’ll be a piece of cake.”

“You can’t predict what will come through.”

“And that’s why I need to close it.”

“Of course the rift must be closed. With a proper force, and not an audience of bait.”

“You’re enough of a proper force for anything,” Laurel says, with maddening fervency. “If this doesn’t convince them, nothing will.” And she runs down the hill toward it.

Cassandra snarls in frustration and runs after her.

Below the rift, Laurel plants her feet and reaches up, the familiar bolt of light shooting from her hand, snapping and twisting between her and the tear in reality.

Then, shouts from behind them, and two of the young courtiers from the chateau stumble to a halt before the rift, rapiers drawn. Cassandra groans to herself. There’s no time. She tries to watch in all directions. "Be ready!" she calls out, and then wraiths are manifesting in the air, and a rage demon is dragging itself burning from the ground. If this is all, she will praise the Maker's mercy.

Laurel pulls energy from the rift, and the young men adopt terrified dueling stances. A despair demon squeals out of the rift and freezes the arm of the first man before another rage demon flares up to melt the ice, and she blocks it, and it all becomes a blur of letting her training and instincts drive her faster than conscious thought.

When Laurel finally wrenches the rift closed, the two courtiers are knocked out and frostbitten, but alive. Cassandra has run herself ragged dispatching seven demons, and been clawed and bruised and burnt.

When she finds Laurel on her knees amid their remains, bleeding in three places, she is drained, furious, and blinded by feeling. Not trusting herself to control her words, she waits to see her and the others on a cart, gives them most of her healing supplies, then rides back ahead of them.

* * *

It’s not long before Laurel comes to her room, as she knew she would. Alone, in fresh clothes, her wounds cleaned and bound by someone skilled, at least.

“That was … Maker, you devastated them.” She’s bright-eyed and sparking, flushed with ardor, seemingly feeling no pain.

Cassandra is cleaning herself from a basin of hot water, shirt off, examining the damage to her gear and her body.

“I should not have had to. We could all easily be dead. Look at you.” She can’t see Laurel’s injuries without gritting her teeth.

“But it worked.” Laurel touches her arm. “I mean—can I—”

“Why did I even come here, if you won’t listen to me?” Cassandra tears off another bandage and winds it around the scratch on her shoulder.

Laurel looks shaken.

“I'll do what you say now,” she murmurs, smoothing a hand over the cloth.

Cassandra’s anger beats out her desire. "I am tired. Find your own bed." She turns away.

After a moment, she hears Laurel rise quietly and leave the room, footsteps retreating down the hall.

She is tired, of this whole place, already, and she wants to take her back to Skyhold and have it out. Does Laurel only want her to toy with? Her heart rejects this. No, she simply acts before thinking: Cassandra’s own besetting sin.

She finishes her bandaging, finishes the long mindless routine of cleaning armor and sword, restores everything to its place where it fits neatly together.

Then, Cassandra sits on the overstuffed mattress under the silk draperies and feels like a hypocrite sending her away for risking herself. If an assassin chooses tonight—

She can’t give in every time. She is one door down. There are guards posted whom she has no reason to distrust. The Inquisitor is a trained fighter with her own skills.

When she gets in bed, she tosses and turns, and gets even less sleep than she would have with Laurel. After second moonrise, she decides too much thinking is just as bad as too little, and if she’s awake here, she can be awake there.

In the hall, it’s ten paces to Laurel’s door. She moves between the guards, with a stare daring them to say something, and opens it as quietly as she can.

The room is moonlit and quiet. Laurel is a shape in the bed, unmoving. Cassandra crosses to its edge, lets a breath out when she hears her breathe, and sighs again when she doesn’t wake.

Her hair is mussed over her face, eyes smudged. With crying? The last of Cassandra’s anger slips away. She sinks into a nearby chair with her sword to hand, and stays awake, watching her sleep.

* * *

Cassandra wakens under a blanket tucked into the chair. Faint voices filter up from below the garden-facing windows, and a breeze carries in the scent of leaves.

Laurel’s still in the bed, late morning light falling on her naked back, head on her crossed arms, watching her drowsily.

“I could have been anyone.” She shifts to rise and winces, reminded of the fight.

“No.” Laurel yawns and pulls a dagger from under the pillow. “I had plans to gut any assassins if they woke you.”

Cassandra can’t resist smiling at this. She gets to her feet, and leans on the bedpost.

Laurel pushes herself to her knees, sheets falling away, and reaches toward her. When Cassandra doesn’t withdraw, her kiss is hesitant, then aching and determined, molding against her, teeth grazing her lip on release.

“Cassandra,” she says, “I do everything wrong, I don’t care if you can’t tell anyone, but we’re facing the end of the world, I want to listen to you, I want all the time with you I can find a way to have, and I'm going to keep being horribly shameless about it.” She pauses, inhales. Her fingers curl into Cassandra’s shirt. “I mean, for as long as you want that. If you still do."

Cassandra has forgiven her well before this; now, she can’t see anything to do but bend and kiss her back, for as long as she has breath.

Which ends with both of them tumbling into the pillows, red-faced, and Laurel’s other hand in her pants, and Laurel coming up gasping with a delightedly wicked smile. “Then I hate to say keep quiet, but—” She nods toward the windows.

* * *

And so, what with one thing and the other, they’re late meeting the baroness to tour her historic armory collection, as she promised Cassandra the day before.

Laurel makes profuse apologies, blaming herself and her injuries and coming up with a long convincing story to explain their absence from breakfast.

The baroness clicks her tongue, leading them down the path. “My goodness, dear, you must be such a trial for your Lady Seeker Pentaghast.”

Laurel looks down. “Mine? Oh, I don’t know about—”

“She is,” Cassandra cuts in, then says to her, “And you do know.”

Laurel’s eyes flash up, and it’s as if they're suddenly alone on the path, or she’s shouted into a silence. Now she’s ashamed to have said nothing before.

"Just try not to break me," she adds, mostly joking.

Wonder and dismay cross Laurel's face. “Me? No. Could I? Never.” Her expression softens, undisguised. "Maker, then just tell me when I'm being a shit."

At this rapid cascade of emotion, she chokes on a laugh. “I can do that.”

Laurel kisses her hand through her glove.

The world comes back in. Everyone is staring. Skyhold will surely know about this before nightfall, if they didn’t already. She finds the thought is a relief.

Laurel announces to the garden at large, “Pardon me, everyone, I clearly owe _my_ Seeker quite a few more apologies, perhaps an endless number.”

Some onlookers exclaim and some clap. Cassandra lets her be ridiculous. She suspects she’ll be able to forgive her endlessly, when it comes to that.


End file.
